Fiber artist, Laurie Ceesay, sharing her thoughts and journey to creating art quilts with the emphasis on portraits, hairstyles and fashion.

Wednesday, October 19, 2016

My Bella Pattern Revamped for Wonderfil Threads

I took my drawing of my Bella pattern and enlarged it to 24" square and adapted it to a more realistic version. Some things are similar but there are much more hair strands, skin tone shading and eye detail. I was asked by Wonderfil Threads from Calgary, Alberta Canada to make a wall hanging quilt. I have been one of their featured teachers and I receive perks from the company so I thought it was honorable to make a quilt, when they asked me, which will be displayed when the company vends at markets and festivals. The idea of pink hair came from me while working in a hair salon and reading all the ads in hair stylist publications and the trend has been vibrant colored hair. I chose pink because it's my favorite color! I selected blue/turquoise for the eye shadow because it was a color in the background fabric and it seemed retro-like in a 1960s kind of way. When selecting the lip color I stayed with the 1960s theme and chose a lighter pink to mimic the frosted lips of the decade a la Twiggy and Mary Quant!!

This is a starting point photo of the applique pieces fused and cut out and the background and binding fabrics chosen. The applique pieces are then fused to the background and with 7 different colors of hair it was a bit complicated! Could I turn this into a pattern-it would be hard to explain the process and order to fuse the applique pieces to the background fabric. The whole fusing process is like putting a jigsaw puzzle together!!

This is a photo of the details of the face. I used only Wonderfil Threads since this project was about their products. Some of the threads used were Fabulux rayon thread which has a beautiful shimmer on the hair; 40 wt rayon variegated for the eyes and mouth and Egyptian cotton "Tutti" in variegated browns for the skin tones. I embellished with loose chunky glitter on the eyelid for "eyeliner," nail polish on the mouth and eye shadow areas; a rhinestone for a nose piecing and a variety of rainbow colored beads hand sewn to form a necklace. I will be sending this one onto the Wonderfil folks and plan to make another version for myself with a woman of color with red hair and green eye shadow!!

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About Me

I am a contemporary quilter who specializes in portrait quilts. I am a hairdresser and am fascinated with hairstyles, make up, replicating the human form in fiber, retro fashion/prints, flowers and fairies. I usually work with bright colors, batiks and large scale prints. I love to embellish my quilts with rhinestones, beads, baubles, yarn, paint and crayons.